Has an AFL game ever ended 61-53?
Yes. AFL has seen a final score of 61-53 5 times. It first happened on May 22, 1920, when Fitzroy beat Collingwood, and most recently on August 8, 2010, when Footscray beat Adelaide.
That makes 61-53 the 589th most common final score out of 6,607 that have ever occurred in AFL. One point away, 62-53 has happened 3 times and 61-54 has happened 2 times. At one point the score disappeared for 55 years, between 1955 and 2010.